Tecumseh Shutout By Butler, Ready For TNL

By Jim Dabbelt

Sep 06, 2017

Coach Chris Cory knows that his Tecumseh football team wouldn’t get much time to think about the result of their game last Friday night before hitting the field tomorrow night in a special Thursday night contest.

That turns out to be a good thing.

Fighting through some key injuries, the Arrows watched as Vandalia Butler controlled the entire game, and the game reached a running clock in the third quarter before Tecumseh lost 42-0 to drop to 0-2 on the season.

The Arrows now prepare for their Thursday Night Lights game of the week tomorrow night, as they host Bellbrook at 7 p.m. at Spitzer Stadium

“We came in with some injuries after a hard fought game against Fairborn last week, and they laid it on the line last week,” Cory said after the game. “I told the kids I’m not disappointed because they never gave up, our effort was there and sometimes you run into buzzsaws.”

“Butler has a very good team, we just have to regroup and stay together.”

Butler controlled the game from the start, building a comfortable lead at the half and never looked back. Even when Tecumseh came out to start the second half, their second half hopes diminished when the Butler return man took the kickoff back for a touchdown, adding to their lead.

Jabari Wortham scored on a short run in the opening period to start the scoring, then early in the second period, Mason Motter hit Bryant Johnson with a 59-yard pass to push the Butler lead to 14-0.

Before the half, Logan Flatt plunged in from a yard out to make it 21-0 at the break.

“We struggled putting some first downs together, and it took us a while to get going,” Cory said.

Flatt set the tone for the second half when he took the opening kickoff 65 yards for a touchdown, deflating the sails of the Arrows and Butler was in control with a four touchdown lead.

Johnson caught a 70 yard touchdown pass with 3:33 left in the third period to put the game into a running clock mode, as Butler led 35-0.

Tecumseh didn’t get many chances to score, but did get down to the one-yard-line before turning the ball over.

“We had a couple of nice drives in the second half but we were deflated a bit when they came out and scored on that big return,” Cory said. “With some of the injuries we had tonight, there were some things we weren’t able to that we could have probably done.”

“We played a lot of sophomores against a team with 20 seniors, and even though we made some mistakes they played hard.”